Overview
IgniteWV is a business case competition and resource center for entrepreneurs based in West Virginia. By connecting startup businesses with mentors and investors, IgniteWV aims to help entrepreneurs navigate the unique challenges faced by West Virginia businesses and bring a bright economic future to the state. IgniteWV was launched in partnership with West Virginia University’s John Chambers College (WVU JCCOBE) of Business and Economics (for whom I interned for in college). I worked as a Branding and UI/UX consultant to their teams to design, develop, and launch IgniteWV’s website in the summer of 2023.
Timeline: April 2023 – Present
Role: Branding + UI/UX Consultant
Client: IgniteWV
Color Palette
Typography
The initial IgniteWV branding was created by the WVU Chambers College of Business’ Strategic Communications team before being handed off to my team and I for final adjustments and refinement. We worked with IgniteWV’s team to further understand their intended audiences and continued to modify the brand until stakeholders who represented each intended audience age-group were satisfied with the visual language and messaging.
After the revisions were completed, we compiled all of the elements into a brand guide which is used by their in-house marketing team to create future promotional materials.
UI/UX
I designed the website interface and site map/user flows for IgniteWV.com, and oversaw and contributed to the final development of the website. By identifying the IgniteWV team’s key success metrics, researching similar organizations’ strategies, and bringing my own industry insights to the table, I led the content strategy and implementation from the initial information architecture through to the website launch. IgniteWV.com now serves as the primary digital information hub for the organization and it’s business plan competition, guidelines, helpful resources, testimonials, and an event calendar.
Tools:
After Effects, Figma, Flywheel, GitHub, Illustrator, Photoshop, Visual Studio Code, WordPress
Media + Blog
IgniteWV’s website features a media section consisting of blog posts, image galleries, and is built to hold video content in the future. Designed to inspire future competitors, the media section covers the stories of past awardees, and professional photography from previous competitions.
- Sub-Navigation for Content Sorting
- Custom Blog Post Templates
- Video Functionality
Competition Onboarding
One of the most significant portions of the website is the Compete page where all of the competition’s onboarding instructions and documents are available for review and download. This page has a sub-navigation with jump links that also highlight the active section as the user scrolls to them.
- Sub-Navigation for scannability
- PDF Resources and Guidelines Downloads
- Entrepreneural Resource Center
3D + Motion + Interactions
From interactive, subtle scroll-based effects and animated infographics to creative button hover states, IgniteWV’s interface is designed to inform and entertain users. As an organization committed to changing the landscape of business in West Virginia, portraying their organization as an innovative, tech-forward brand was essential.
- Tastefully Understated Scroll-Based Effects
- Animated Infographics
- Motion Branding
Content Strategy
The content strategy consisted of research into common practices for organizations such as IgniteWV. The content was crafted around frequent call-to-action buttons that lead users the competition sign-up or the inquiry form. We were also careful to pace the often-technical content into easily scannable sub-sections to avoid user attrition.
Performance Optimization
In addition to developing the website in accordance to W3C best practices and ADA compliance, my team and I optimized all of the photos, graphics, and video content to assure speedy loading times.
Managed Hosting
IgniteWV’s website is hosted on my agency, Full Circle Design’s website hosting server. All sites on our server receive daily backups, monthly analytics, and a maintenance request portal that notifies our team to repair of any issues experienced on the website.
Marketing Suite
More details coming soon.